It came about after a prolonged period of meditation, having the same image come up in my mind's eye over and over - A Closed Door in the middle of a giant hall. Someone said write about it and I did; hence this poetry and the concept, then 175 Missing Pieces and all the rest of the books on recovery and now workshops and seminars on spiritual recovery.
Neil

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Part Two Creative Shaming: The Flip Side of Creativity

Creative Shaming occurs when we come in conflict with someone or something and they have a need to be in authority over us or our situation. What the recipe for the conflict seems to be is their need for authority over us being triggered by our neediness for (fill in the blank) that conflicts with their repressed neediness for (fill in the blank generally the same thing). Might Makes Right ???? … Oh Really

It is actually an ego defense strategy of reducing the perception of the sense of anxiety by attempting to gain authority over that which seems to remind them of their hidden pain. An outer fix for an inner condition. At best it is a temporary fix.

Thus the shame spiral gets passed on.

Now it is about here that the results of this authority shaming can be seen;

If a child has ever been made to feel foolish for believing himself or herself talented, then the act of actually finishing or completing something, a piece of art, a simple household task, etc will be fraught with intense internal shame, shame dialogues, scripts, self defeating acts and thoughts will storm through the mind and it will be next to impossible to do, if not impossible to bring the work to completion.

Many people begin tasks and they get well along in the process of doing them, and then they come to the wall. As they come near completing the task at hand then their works seems to suddenly and mysteriously drain of merit.

It's no longer worth the trouble.

To therapists, this surge of sudden disinterest ("It doesn't matter") is a routine coping device employed to deny pain and ward off vulnerability of being shamed upon completion. If I do nothing then no-thing or no one can hurt me.

1 comment:

hello my name is kerry and I do believe I have used this process called "detachment" many times and it seems to make sense, why I do not like to complete tasks (or even start them .. as if ... well... "it doesn't matter" YES IT DOES matter.